Grace Has Its Moments

Seriously, that cheered me up, and I don’t just mean about Barcelona’s future. This season had been…not terrible, by any means, but sort of saggy at the top, like a failed cake. In a lot of places on a lot of tables, the math was more exciting than anything that actually happened. Doomsday calculators kept not turning into wars. And that’s not to dismiss the total raving acid meltdown of the last day in the Premier League, which was tremendous fun, and crazy, but which saw all that hysterical drama knocking around some really pretty mediocre soccer. I have nothing but respect for people who love smaller teams, relegation fights, anti-commercial alternatives, or the total picture of a table; myself, I’m a hopeless slave of championships, ultimate stakes, and world-ending clashes of talent. And if you’re built that way, there’s something anticlimactic about a champagne celebration that follows finishing the year with a loss. This season felt like it got its storylines mixed up.

And yet. That was a good game yesterday, no? If you can look beyond the omnipresent question of “narrative” for a second—what it is, how it’s constructed, how it’s manipulated—you can see that how you remember a season, the color of the glow it takes on afterwards in your mind, is something separate and arguably simpler. Yes, it can turn on a force-fed media narrative, but it can also turn on an event (say, Donovan’s goal against Algeria) or on one game. If the narrative of this season was Barcelona staking out their place among the greatest, then how we’re going to remember that is not as a halftime oration by some pundit on a couch, but as a surreally great performance in a positive match against a strong, credible, and totally overmatched opponent. That is, to the extent that something as meta as “officially proving that you’re one of the best club teams ever” can really happen, it really happened yesterday, and in the best way possible. As I stammered on Twitter in the minutes after the match, sometimes the game just gets it right.

Think about how right it got things yesterday. It was just a fast, fierce, exhilarating game. No refereeing controversies, no egregious diving, no full-team aggro-mobbing a side judge, no stamping, no winking, no red cards, no penalties, no injuries. There was some hard fouling—Valencia was arguably lucky to stick around—but Manchester United didn’t do a Chelsea-at-the-Camp-Nou by any stretch of the imagination. All things considered, and in vivid contrast to a lot of teams who’ve gone down to Barcelona over the last three years, I thought United were legitimately heroic in defeat yesterday. Yes, they let themselves get overrun in midfield, but they also tried to score, got forward when they could, and played without the angry, overawed terror that you sometimes see from Madrid. In all likelihood turtling up and sawing at Messi’s legs would have been just as futile as playing boldly. So why not show some boldness? To sound like a Victorian war buff for a second, it was the sort of loss you can live with, even smile about later, because you got outscored but didn’t give in. As someone whose feelings about Man Utd have been mixed at best this season, I was proud of them last night.

Barcelona’s performance in the second half is going to be talked about in hushed tones for a while, and deservedly so. The most impressive thing, to me, was that they won by doing exactly what they wanted. Matches at this level tend to be decided, if not by penalties, then by lucky bounces (Xabi Alsono getting his penalty rebound in ’05, Inzaghi deflecting Pirlo’s free kick in ’07), sudden breakthroughs (Iniesta in the World Cup final), goals squeezed in after a scramble in the box. Yesterday, though, each of Barcelona’s forwards scored from open play, with each of their midfielders contributing an assist. They had 63% of the possession and 12 shots on target (to one for Man Utd—Rooney’s goal). Messi scored in England, even if it was in London on a Saturday night. Valdes didn’t have to make a save. They played exactly their game, and their game worked exactly the way it’s supposed to, and the second-or-third-best team in the world was basically powerless to frustrate them. If soccer is about realizing a collective intention against the limitations imposed by the game and the resistance imposed by the opponent, then Barcelona epitomized soccer yesterday. Forget the backlash, your anti-mass-media skepticism, conspiracy theories, blog rage, and Heineken. If you love sports you were lucky to watch that.

Completely agree. As cliched as it might be to talk about “football being the victor”, I think in light of how the season has gone – especially in the light of a couple really ugly, dirty clasicos and allegations of cheating in racism – football really did win last night. Not because Barcelona beat Man Utd, or because some style prevailed over another, but because one team clearly defeated another strictly based on the merits of their own play.

Grace might have had its moment, but for however beautiful it was, it was also fairly joyless. There is thing so routine about Barcelona putting 3 past Man U now that it felt less like a coronation than the doing away with some anxiety of influence. In forming a circle and singing “campeones” Barca’s celebration after the game was pleasant, but it wasn’t an outburst. No one was mobbed and tears weren’t shed, it seemed like a ritual meant more to show that they were happy than express anything they felt.

What it comes down to for me is that a great team needs a great test, and while you can argue that test was the two-and-a-half weeks of clasicos, it certainly wasn’t United, no matter how well they played for themselves.

I thought united weren’t playing at their best. They seemed off, like they weren’t trying. Then I realized they were trying to play their game, and Barcelona are just that good. They made United seem lacklustre.

@Alan Jacobs Well, the Premier League and La Liga were saggy, but the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 were all riveting. I’m sad that I didn’t catch any Serie A games this winter. Udinese and Napoli certainly seemed from YouTube clips to be wonderful teams to watch. The Bundesliga may not ever have been truly competitive, with Borussia Dortmund cruising to victory, but the experience was like watching a high-wire act by someone on a windy day. Yeah, they made it to the end unharmed, but they always felt like they were in danger. Ligue 1, meanwhile, was genuinely competitive and Lille were worthy winners, but never ran away with it like Dortmund, Man U and Barcelona did.

@Kári Tulinius I’ll give you France. Napoli and Udinese were fun teams to watch but finished 12 and 16 points back, respectively. And Dortmund never did wobble enough to make things all that interesting. I’d put both leagues in the class of doomsday calculators without wars.

Great post – I think that it has one error; Valdes did have to make a save, from Pique, on a very rapid backpass that could so easily have been an own goal.
Also, Carrick played a good role in the Rooney goal, had a decent overall game and was overrun due to being outmanned and the incredible movement and technique on offer. Hope he doesn’t catch too much blame for this – I actually think he’s similar to Busquets in many ways.
Overall, a tasty treat.

The season might not have been “competitive” in any league except France, but I enjoyed most of the football on display anyway. Barca were scintillating in the first half of the season and occasionally in the second half; Udine were great to watch, with a style that had the thrill of the unexpected; and Dortmund were simply brilliant. Except for the personal tragedy of watching my Fiorentina collapse again and again, I had a lot of fun this season.

I could do without the four-Classicos-in-three-weeks hate fest ever again, though.

@Angharad We are going to have 2 in 4 days in August with the super-cup. *sigh*

Despite being as much of a Barca fan as I can ever see myself supporting any sport team, I feel a bit hollow after yesterday. I think it might be because I fear, deep down, that at 24 years of age I might have witnessed the greatest 3 year spell I will ever see, especially if you add Spain to the mix. I hope I start sharing your renewed optimism soon, Brian, because it’s too early for it to end!

After the first year, the treble, with all the talk of ‘could this be the greatest side ever’ starting up, I wondered what it meant for a side to ‘define’ an ‘era’. Would we ever be able to know whilst it happened? Were we going to spend days looking for highlights in the 2020s?? Is it necessary that everyone agrees that they are the best? If not what percentage? Should they be liked, in general? Are they allowed to compete at (almost) any cost, or should they also be ultra-moral? Will their fate be tied to whether or not Messi goes down as one of the greatest?

I have come to the conclusion that, to define an era, you need a lot of things, from style to money to luck. But having legendary players, or ridiculous scoring rates, or a link with Unicef won’t necessarily suffice – perhaps the most important thing is that the team needs to leave a traceable pattern in history, which means it needs to be covered in the media, in books, in films and so on. Not necessarily praiseworthy – arguments, accusations, they all count. If there is one thing this Barca run has undoubtedly done it is this – that they have been the most discussed, analyzed, covered side of the last decade or so. This, of course, is nothing new, and goes for anything that might or might not go down in history as being important. It might not be as romantic, but in 30-40 years, with fewer people having experienced it first hand, and few with the time to look into it in any detail, the sheer size of the information-footprint this team created will ensure that they WILL go down as an era-defining team.

I know it’s not a popular thing to say in the English-speaking world, but I think it’s time we, in the words of Señor Guardiola, had a serious talk about Sergio Busquets. The playacting at the end besides, he played as brilliantly as I’ve ever seen. He made the task of containing Manchester’s midfield-forward link seem mundane, even boring. Oh yeah, and with Rooney firmly in his pocket, he even managed to stroll upfield and take part in some gorgeous offense, switching effortlessly between the two.

It’s to his immense credit that I, on more than one occasion, wondered how Xavi had grown a foot taller in the space of 20 minutes. Simply sublime, in an almost completely invisible sort of way.

@Brian Davis I agree. Sergio Busquets is truly the unsung hero of Barcelona’s dominance. His positionning, jis tactical intelligence, his one-touch short passing, all allow the ball to keep moving – and if there is one sacred principle in Barcelona’s tiki-taka, it is this : the ball must never stop. It must move endlessly, spiral until it enters the goal.

Sergio Busquets is the motor oil that allows Barcelona’s Porsche to run.

@Angarwaen In all honesty, Busquets can go eat a fat one. Sorry for the language but the man deserves it. And don’t get me wrong, the man knows his football better than most, and at such an early age too, but he is still very hard to like. I’d like to see him play his game for any other club, test how well he can adapt outside Barcelona.

Are you saying that in the football pantheon, the ‘how’ in a lot of ways matters more than the ‘what’? I hope so, because that’s what I’m getting from this.
Reflecting on the final — which seemed to be held for the sole purpose of the pundits to decide the question ‘how great is Barça?’ — I thought the manner of the victory served Barça’s argument better than the victory itself.
Really, at the end, when they handed over the trophy I thought: ‘Oh, the trophy, that’s nice.’ It just seemed kind of beside the point.

Thanks mostly to Mou, the apocalyptic Classicos tainted the Barça narrative – I don’t really agree with this, but the sheer tonnage of opinion on this matter makes debate irrelevant – they won, but it’s boring to write about winning again, so the morbo became the story. We needed the mother of all palate cleansers. We got it.

I have to say I am hoping for some commentary, somewhere (here seems more likely than anywhere else), on the facial expression of Messi after he scored his goal – the joy of the little genius. No hostility, nothing oppositional, just pure joie de vivre. Almost like he’s not actually playing ‘against’ anyone, but with everyone, as well as all of us watching from afar. The being-with of his being-there, let’s say, is a wonderfully participatory kind of grace.

@Steven First things first – yes, he does dive. Sometimes a lot. Name one who never did it.

When Pedrag Mijatovic was accused of diving, he answered : “It’s only jealousy. It takes real skill to be an actor”.

I’m not justifying, but name one player who has not used any low tricks. Even in the much-lauded Premier League, Scholes has his kicks and Gerrard has his diving moments.

When his act is clean – as in the final, or in the 5-0 destruction of Real Madrid, few defensive midfielders can stand comparison with the man from Sabadell.

Second – as for the argument of “let’s see how he adapts in another team”, is it actually valid ? Messi only ever played at Barcelona, but no one doubts his ability. Zanetti’s first and only club in Europe was Inter. Totti has always played at Roma, a team that always had quite a few hardcore Romanistas in the starting eleven. Maldini never left AC Milan. When Cruyff left for Barcelona, Michels was establishing the same style of play as Ajax, and Neeskens was also there, so he wasn’t exactly enetering a new world (and same in the late 1990′s – De Boer, Cocu, Reiziger, Kluivert all came from the Netherlands at the same time to Barcelona, so they weren’t exactly in a strange land).

@Hugo While I am most definitely not looking forward to the supercup, I am hoping that having essentially nothing to play for — Barca won the CL, there’s the narrative done and dusted — will mean the truly epic amounts of bile spewed during April’s Classicos will not be present. Then again, this is Mourinho and Marca‘s hegemony we’re talking about, so maybe that is a vain hope.

@Brian Davies and Angarwaen — Busquets certainly is a spectacular footballer. It’s a pity he’s not a more likable person. The racism claim may or may not have been justified, but the unfortunate truth is that that is the kind of thing one can believe from Busquets. It’s a pity that such unpleasantness tends to overwhelm his undeniable skill with a football.

@Angharad
Oh, come on. This part “It’s a pity he’s not a more likable person. The racism claim may or may not have been justified, but the unfortunate truth is that that is the kind of thing one can believe from Busquets” is absolute rubbish. First of all, just because Busquets dived in a few matches does not mena he is not a likeable person, we don’t know how he is outside the pitch so please don’t judge him. And secondly, since when is racism linked to diving? Drogba is a much better diver that Busquets, is he a racist too?
That part of your post makes absolutely no sense at all.

Your blog is amazing, Brian. Ended up here via Slate (where I had been reading your articles for quite some time). I had been looking for months for someone writing about Soccer the way DFW wrote about Federer in that already legendary NYT piece, and I think this space comes close. Guess a sport writer needs a Roger or a Barca to bring that out in them. Fantastic work.

I have to say that following the end of the game I turned to my friend and said “This is vintage Barca.” The whole game reminded me of the 08-09 season when I would watch a game knowing who would win. It didn’t matter that United leveled the score before halftime you just knew they were going to win, they put on a performance the likes of which we simply have not seen in a while. Ever since January they had lost their undefeatable air which culminated in the drudgery that was the super-clasicos. It was more important that they played the way they did than that they won the match, possibly because when they play in that way they always in the match.

@Angharad I don’t watch football to get cues on ideal social behavior. I *hope* the players all act with respect and professionalism, but I hardly *expect* such a ridiculously high level of citizenship to reveal itself on a competitive field of ritualized warfare.

Incidentally, I also think Xabi Alonso is an insanely gifted player and a joy to watch, and my opinion on that matter is not shaped at all by his despicable behavior in Los Clásicos. For the same reasons I don’t vote for the president I’d most like to have a beer with, I don’t expect all my athletic idols to be more muscular versions of Jesus.

And, because I think that many seem to be buying into this “Busquets the diver” narrative, I don’t feel it’s emphasized enough (again, in the English-speaking press) that Barça’s diving and gamesmanship in the Clásicos was a direct response to Mourinho’s persistent fouling strategy. A “foul”, for those who only follow the EPL or MLS, is defined as a violation of the Laws of the Game, and is cheating just as much as diving is.

Count how many times Busquets or any of the others hits the turf in a match where the referee’s foul threshold is appropriately adjusted (such as this most recent final). You may just be surprised.

Carrick had a role in their goal but his passing in general was very sloppy and he wasn’t all that sure with his touch either, as in 09. On the other side, Busquets was showing how that role should be done with aplomb. (Or is Carrick supposed to be “the Xavi”?)

@Conor Williams That’s one of my favorite posts! You might want to read it again, though, because (in the words of Inigo Montoya) I do not think it means what you think it means. A little light-hearted fun does not hatred make.

@Conor Williams To mitigate the sensation of being in the company of pueriles who ruin your your one crack at a thoughtful discussion of football may I just say that I love run-on sentences? Oh and I don’t know where to put this but why doesn’t football have more beatwriters ala Honigstein, Lowe et al?

Since we’ve moved on to tangents, I’d just like to say that the moment Messi kicks the microphone and screams in ecstasy into the crowd, my brain replaces whatever he yells with “I’M RICK STEEEEEEEEEEVES!!”

It wasn’t intentional, it just popped in there. And now that moment is forever tainted for me.

Some of the conclusions you draw are laughable. You try and suggest there is something admirable about Manchester United being totally outplayed last night because they were being “bold” and yet slate the conservative option that worked for Inter and for all but the grace of the Gods, Chelsea. Heck, even United themselves employed the same tactics when they were triumphant in their semi final against Barcelona a few seasons back.